


the memory of you wasn't enough

by yakukinnie



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Explicit Language, Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miscommunication, One Shot, POV Sakusa Kiyoomi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29258463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yakukinnie/pseuds/yakukinnie
Summary: Sakusa left Tokyo without a look back. Except now, he has to return, and while he tells himself that he is done crying over Miya Atsumu, the man proves him wrong yet again.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 55





	the memory of you wasn't enough

**Author's Note:**

> This was purely self-indulgent. Please don't hate me if they're out of character I tried my best. Also pls constructive criticism is appreciated I'll only cry a little, unless if you're mean in which case I'll cry a lot.  
> Many thanks to @atlasoverthemoon for editing-- my grammar is atrocious

Sakusa had left Osaka as soon as he could. 

Away from the city that had given him so much and then left an empty cavity in his chest when the debt was due.

Back to Tokyo, the city that, despite the cool clinical feeling it left in his gut, had raised him.

But now, only a month after Atsumu had shattered his world for the second time, he had to go back. He had put it off as long as he could, but his mother was getting frankly incessant about the ring that, in a moment of what he now deems weakness, he had left on Atsumu’s finger.

Though, he supposes, it probably wasn’t on his finger for very long after the fact.

Music plays loudly through his earbuds as he steps off the Shinkansen, eyes straight ahead. He couldn’t afford to sit and ruminate, to even so much as a glance over at the bench that he knew would be to his left, the bench where he had once waited with trembling anticipation for Atsumu to come back home. To him. Home. 

This thought should have brought tears to his eyes instantly. However, he had decided he was done crying, especially over someone who definitely didn’t cry over him. He was proud of the fact that he no longer cried at the thought of a certain Miya Atsumu. 

The bench has long been out of sight, but Sakusa strictly maintains his thoughts and his gaze to the bare minimum, fearful that if he didn’t, the dull ache in his chest would intensify.

Now that he thinks of it, he hadn’t yet told Atsumu that he was coming to his city. That he was coming to retrieve his family’s belonging. Sakusa knew that he would be here, though. Yes, he knew for sure. Atsumu kept his Instagram extraordinarily up-to-date–to Sakusa, almost embarrassingly so. It’s like he had never heard of a Finsta. Or a diary. Or to just keep his thoughts to his damn self.

Sakusa wasn’t bitter. He had convinced himself otherwise.

Thinking of Atsumu’s online presence caused a train of thought that Sakusa had been trying to stamp out. In the background of one of Atsumu’s Instagram story posts from a few days ago, unnoticeable except to Sakusa, was Sakusa’s hoodie. He was sure of it. It was neatly folded, barely visible, but there. In his dresser drawer, which was, for some reason, open in the photo, right next to what Sakusa recognized as Astumu’s old high school volleyball practice shirt. 

Sakusa had tried his best not to overthink. He really did. But why was it so nicely folded, so obviously handled with care? Why was the drawer open? Why was it so close to the front of Atsumu’s collection of clothes, as if it had recently been remembered and taken out? Why was it surrounded by Atsumu’s most treasured clothing and memories?

He must be preparing to throw it away, Sakusa told himself. There’s no other reasonable explanation. At least none he would allow himself to entertain.

He had learned his lesson, after all. Atsumu had destroyed his walls, and Sakusa hadn’t stopped him. He had carved himself a spot in Sakusa’s chest, casually cutting him open, ripping him apart, and casting his viscera and tissue aside to make room for himself to curl up and sap his lifeforce. That is, until he had decided that he had had enough of Sakusa. 

Sakusa wasn’t bitter. 

He stops walking, realizing that his feet had started to carry him in the direction of his old apartment. He ducks into the nearest shop with the intention of gathering his thoughts and maybe coming up with a plan. Or courage.

Or both.

It’s a cafe, and Sakusa realizes with dread that it’s one he frequented with Atsumu. He turned around abruptly and walked out.

Atsumu had turned him into a scattered mess. 

_“Shut up, Miya.”_

_“C’mon now, Omi-Omi, try it!”_

_“I would if it didn’t entail you spoon-feeding me like an infant.”_

_“Pleaseeee Omi-Kun, Omi-Omi, love of my life? You know it would be cute!”_

Why did Sakusa’s roots have to intertwine with Atsumu’s? Why had he allowed himself to grow so far down and so deeply into Atsumu’s embrace? Why had he encouraged it, burrowing deeper? How could he have been so oblivious to the fact that one day he’d have to painstakingly undo how they were intertwined and uproot himself?

He ends up coming up with a plan as he walks. He would text Atsumu, telling him that he was in Osaka, that he needed to settle something with him and ask if they could talk.

He hits send after rereading the text to the point where he had it practically memorized.

The reply comes a few minutes later, obviously edited, even if Atsumu had attempted, if not succeeded, in acting nonchalant. Sakusa knew him better than that.  


**From: Atsumu**  
What did you want to settle, Sakusa?

Sakusa’s stomach drops, ever so slightly, at the use of his last name.

**To: Atsumu**  
I need the ring back. My mom is asking for it. 

**From: Atsumu**  
Ah. 

**To: Atsumu**  
Can we meet somewhere?

 **From: Atsumu**  
You’re not even gonna come by to visit Maguro? 

Avoiding the question. Typical Miya. Sakusa stuffs his phone into his pocket, scowling. Why did Atsumu seem to want him to come to their apartment? Or rather, Atsumu’s apartment.  
He sighs. He supposes it would actually be nice to see Maguro again. Besides, he was pretty confident that he would have enough tact to get in and out without too much drama.

**To: Atsumu**  
I suppose I can come by then. When would work for you?

 **From Atsumu:**  
How long are you in Osaka? Where are you staying?

 **To: Atsumu**  
I didn’t really plan much… I’m just here for the ring.

 **From: Atsumu**  
That’s not like you.

Sakusa scowls, again, more deeply this time. How dare Atsumu act like he knows him.

Nevermind the fact that it really isn’t like Sakusa not to plan something thoroughly. He does have to be back in Tokyo by Monday morning, and his JR pass for the way back was already paid for, he just hadn’t scheduled a specific train. His mother had practically shoved him out the door to get the ring, as his eldest sister was supposedly going to get engaged and Sakusa had lost his claim to it when things ended with Atsumu.

**From: Atsumu**  
You could come today so you don’t have to pay for a hotel. I’m home right now.

Sakusa blinks. Even after everything, even after Sakusa had shown up out of nowhere demanding the gift he had given to Atsumu out of love and devotion back, Atsumu still was so thoughtful. So caring.

**To: Atsumu**  
I’ll come now then

Sakusa sighs, suddenly realizing how crazy he must sound.

**From: Atsumu**  
Okay

For a brief second, Sakusa wonders why Atsumu was putting up with all of this. He shakes his head. 

_Remember, you’re here for the ring. You’re here because your mother forced you to. Atsumu hurt you. You can’t forget that._

His walls, which he had painstakingly pieced back together from the rubble that Atsumu had left them in, were not going to be fractured easily. Why are having walls seen as such a bad thing? What’s wrong with having a little protection for your heart, which has been through enough, and your mind, which was so easily bewitched by infatuation years ago?

Soon enough, Sakusa found himself outside his old apartment. 

_“What do you think?!”_

_“Well, I’ve only seen the outside.”_

_“You have an opinion on everything, Omi-Kun!”_

_“It seems… nice.”_

_“Nice!” Atsumu had turned to him with a blinding, soul-snatching smile._

_They had gone in together. Toured it. Atsumu loved the view from the bedroom. Sakusa loved the expanse of counter space in the bathroom. Sakusa could picture making breakfast for Atsumu in the kitchen, doing their nightly routines side by side in the bathroom, drinking coffee in the morning, and taking in the view together, basking in each other’s company._

_"Omi,” Atsumu had whispered to him. “I think I love it.”_

_Sakusa, feeling the significance of the moment, opted not to say anything, and instead reached out and grabbed his hand._

_In Atsumu’s face, adoration and love, and Sakusa had felt like he had finally come home._

**To: Atsumu**  
I’m here

Seconds later, the door opens. 

Atsumu, hair a little lighter, a little shorter, a little wavier, wearing track pants and a crewneck... did he get taller? Sakusa stares. He knows he’s staring.

Atsumu is staring right back.

He holds out a jewelry box.

Sakusa blinks down at it.

Oh, right.

So that’s it? 

Not knowing what else to do, Sakusa reaches out and takes it. It’s a different box than the one it had been in when he last had it. He doesn’t check if the ring is really inside. 

He pockets it and falters. What now? 

Atsumu is looking at him, his face blank, but Sakusa can tell he looks like he wants to do something. He wants to say something. He wants to take the leap. Like he always does. 

Atsumu is always the one who takes the leap for them.

Sakusa clears his throat. “Um. Where’s Maguro?”

Atsumu gives a small smile, and to Sakusa it looks like relief, if not layered with sadness.

“She’s in here.” He steps to the side, inviting Sakusa in. 

Sakusa hesitates. He feels his resolve crumbling. After a moment, he steps in, figuring that the odds of him getting his sweater back would be higher if he went inside.

Sakusa crouches to scratch their– well, Atsumu’s– cat under her chin. A few precious moments pass and Sakusa can feel Atsumu’s gaze on him. He notices that Atsumu had closed the door behind him.

Sakusa stands to wash his hands. He dries them on a kitchen towel and is left unsure of what to do. Atsumu is staring at him, looking again like he wants to say something.

Sakusa figures he’d spare both of them the pain.

“I guess I’ll head back to Tokyo.” He says and takes a step toward the door.

“You just got off the 3-hour train ride,” Atsumu points out. “You’re gonna get right back on it?”

“I mean, there’s not really anything else for me here.”

Atsumu draws in a sharp breath. Sakusa hadn’t meant for it to come out that way.

The damage was done.

“Nothing for you here, huh?”

Sakusa can feel the anger, the hurt radiating off of Atsumu. Maguro scampers out of the room.

“I mean--” Sakusa starts.

“I’m sure I know what you mean, Sakusa,” Atsumu says, his face falling into something dangerous. “The nerve of you.”

“The nerve of _me_?!”

“Yes, the nerve of you!” Atsumu was dangerously close to shouting now. “You just show up, in my city, in _our_ city, a month after breaking up with me! Not only that, but without even saying hi, without saying sorry, you ask for your ring back.” Atsumu took a step forward. “Your ring, Sakusa. The ring you _gave_ me.”

“Sorry?! You want me to say sorry?!”

“ _You_ left _me_ , Sakusa! You threw everything away! And for what? Why? You barely told me anything!”

Good thing he closed the door, Sakusa thinks, and almost laughs at himself at the absurdity of that thought in this situation. He puts his head in his hand, rubbing his temples. Normally he would cringe at the thought of rubbing his hands all over his face, but damn it if it didn’t help abate his increasing heart rate and whirring mind. 

“Miya. I didn’t just up and leave. You drove me away.” Sakusa’s voice was somehow level, despite his internal turmoil. 

Atsumu’s mouth fell open. “What are you talking about.” 

Sakusa gives him a pleading look. “Are we really doing this now?”

Atsumu frowns. “Well, we sure as hell didn’t do it then!”

With that, it is silent, and Sakusa swallows. As soon as Sakusa had realized that the Atsumu he lived with was not the same Atsumu that he had fallen in love with, that had loved him, that had promised him the world, he panicked. He was hurt. He was heartbroken. He had left, and he hadn’t really told Atsumu much of anything, besides some bullshit excuse. Probably something along the lines of, "it's not you, it's me.". He had figured that Atsumu would have been glad to be rid of him without having to do the work of breaking up with Sakusa himself. 

"It just felt like you had stopped loving me," Sakusa says quietly.

“I never stopped loving you, Sakusa,” Atsumu replies, without hesitation.

Sakusa looks up, meeting his gaze, and truly seeing him for the first time in over a year. 

“But… you were so different… you were like a different person, Atsumu. You weren’t the same person that loved me. You had changed. And we had been fighting so much. What else was I to think other than you had fallen out of love with me?”

“Really? That was the only explanation you could think of?”

“Well, what was it then?”

Atsumu sighs. He walks over to the couch and slumps down. After a moment, he finally spoke. “I was so stressed, Omi. I mean, a lot of things had happened all at once… I had started that new job…” Atsumu hesitates, shifts his gaze away, twiddles with his fingers, “...my grandfather had died.”

Sakusa blanches. He didn’t know that Atsumu had been going through that. He could’ve sworn that he had asked Atsumu what was wrong, had asked why he had been distant. He could’ve sworn that all Atsumu had done was dodge his questions. His surprise shifted into fury. “Why didn’t you just talk to me then?!”

“You were stressed enough as it is, Omi! Sue me for trying to take care of something myself instead of burdening you!”

“Oh my god.” Sakusa held his head in his hands, again. “You’re so incredibly stupid.”

“ _You’re_ incredibly stupid!”

“Why do you still have my sweater?”

Atsumu flinches before giving him a desperate look. “Did you not listen to anything I just said?”

Sakusa just stares at him.

“Unbelievable. You know what. Here you go.” Atsumu disappears into the main bedroom for a moment, emerging again with Sakusa’s sweater. He tosses it at Sakusa, and Sakusa’s reflexes manage to catch it. “You’re free to leave now.”

In shock, Sakusa is left with nothing to do but walk slowly toward the front door. His hand was on the door handle before he realized what he was doing. What he was giving up. For the second time.

Atsumu was always the one taking leaps. 

Maybe it was Sakusa’s turn. 

“Atsumu.” 

Atsumu was already looking at him.

“I’m… I’m sorry. Really. For leaving.”

Atsumu’s expression doesn’t change. “You’re a bit late, Omi.”

Sakusa smiles, his heart doing a flip in his chest. “You’re calling me Omi again.”

Atsumu blinked. “Well, you called me Atsumu.”

Sakusa puts his sweater down on the kitchen counter. Slowly, he walks over to Atsumu. So slowly, as if he were approaching a stray cat that had just started to trust him. 

He took a deep breath. “Atsumu. I loved you. I did. I loved you so much it scared me. I let you in. I hadn’t ever let someone in like that. I was completely vulnerable with you. When you drifted away, when we started fighting, when I thought that you had fallen out of love with me, it terrified me. I couldn’t stand the thought of being left by the only person I had ever let in.” With his hand, Sakusa bridged the gap between them, brushing against Atsumu’s fingertips with his own. The touch felt electric, a drop of water in a vast desert. “So instead, I left. And I’m sorry. Clearly, I was wrong. But I panicked. It hurt so bad, Atsumu, leaving you. It hurt so bad, being without you.” Sakusa let his hand fall to his side. He deserved to die of thirst. “I’m truly sorry I put you through that. If it was anything like what I experienced, then it really hurts me that you suffered like that.”

Atsumu breaths out. Sakusa would have felt it on his face if he wasn’t still wearing his mask from outside. He is gripped with the sudden urge to take it off. 

“Kiyoomi,” Atsumu says softly. “Do you still love me?”

“What?” Sakusa says. He had heard him. 

“You know what I said.”

Sakusa looks up to meet Atsumu’s gaze. To study his face, his hair. His eyes are wide and hopeful, but still, there is a lingering sadness behind them. Sakusa can’t bear the fact that he’s the reason for Atsumu’s pain. His heart clenches. He yearns to run his fingers through Atsumu’s hair like he used to be able to do whenever he pleased. Sakusa’s eyes fall to his lips. The lips he was more familiar with than his own. The lips he had spent three years kissing, and then a month in an Atsumu famine. 

How could he live with himself for what he had done to him? 

How could he just saunter back into his life and take what he wanted? He couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to Atsumu, that’s not fair.

Sakusa takes a step back. 

Atsumu’s face doesn’t fall. He takes a step forward and grips Sakusa’s hand without hesitation. Sakusa doesn’t pull away.

“Kiyoomi. I’m sorry, too. I should have talked to you. We can work on us, on our shitty communication skills, we don’t have to fight anymore. I’m trying to make it right now,” Atsumu stares into his eyes, pleading, “if you’ll let me. But you have to try, too. We can try again. I forgive you. You don’t have to run again.”

Sakusa feels his heart swell, and his eyes fill up with tears. He didn’t deserve this. But Atsumu deserved to be loved. And if Atsumu chose him, then who was he to deny him? 

“I love you,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Atsumu. I never stopped.”

Atsumu smiles, blinding, just like he had when they were standing here two and a half years ago. In that smile is hope, and happiness, the sadness that was in his eyes just moments ago gone without a trace.

“Kiyoomi.” Atsumu breathes, every inch of his body relaxing in relief. Sakusa is smiling too. “May I?” Atsumu asks, and once Sakusa nods, he reaches up to unhook Sakusa’s mask, exposing Sakusa’s mirrored expression of love and adoration.

“I missed you,” Sakusa says. “I missed you so much.” 

Atsumu leans in, his mouth centimeters away from Sakusa’s, hesitant, waiting for permission.

Sakusa takes the leap. 

**Author's Note:**

> could you tell this was semi-inspired by all too well by Taylor Swift?!


End file.
